Frontier Airlines Route Cancellation

Maybe you guys can help me out on this one, I originally had a trip scheduled to Vegas for the last week of March this year. Obviously that trip was canceled. I had booked roundtrip flights through Frontier and was scheduled to fly non-stop each way out of my local airport (RDU). Frontier was gracious enough to cancel my flights at no charge and allow me a credit toward future flights which I have to book by the middle June. Here's the kicker I was looking at rebooking my trip in September and Frontier no longer offers the non-stop flight out of RDU, and if I take a connecting flight some of the layovers tend to be rather long (4-8 hours plus). I'm a cheapskate and I bought the cheapest non-refundable tickets I could when I originally booked as the future at the time was unforeseen. I was wondering though with the route cancellation if there was anything Frontier could do or refund since I can't get there directly as I originally booked.

Thanks for any help or input you guys might have!

 

Odds are you wont get anything more out of them. They have been changing a lot of routes lately. We recently had our July flight cancelled for our return trip and are now returning two days later. With Frontier I always just watch their sales. They are always running some sort of deal and I book once I feel it's the price I'm willing to pay.

 

Even though Frontier can still get you from point A to point B, it never hurts to call up and ask.

 

Count it as a bad hour of blackjack and let it go.

 

Frontier used to offer a nonstop from CMH to LAS, but when they did away with it the same thing happened to me and the only option was an overnight layover in Denver. We had a fairly large group & they not only fully refunded us the original round trip fare, but also offered to put us on nonstop flights in both directions free of charge. We did have to drive to Cincinnati, but we decided the 1:45 of driving was worth it for free RT flights. Hopefully you have similar luck.

 

I can't tell if this is the sequence:

• You had a trip booked in March.
• Those flights were not cancelled, but Frontier allowed you to cancel your reservation without a fee and get full value in travel credits.
• You have not booked anything with the travel credits yet, but have to do so by June
• You wanted to book an itinerary that no longer exists because they've removed it from the schedule
• Now you want the travel credits to be converted to a refund so you can book a better itinerary on a different airline or just scrap the trip

If that's the sequence, I think you're out of luck. Your original fare was non-refundable, they gave you a credit and that transaction is history.

If you had actually booked that now-extinct itinerary using the credits before they removed it, you might have had a case, a) because of the layover vs. non-stop and b) especially if they automatically rebooked you on the worse flight and the departure time was 2 hours or more different.

But since you didn't book anything yet with the credits, you have no "harm" to claim.

 

Same thing happened to me. I re-booked my CVG-LAS March Madness flight to October. They killed the direct flight and replaced it with a nice 8 hour layover in Atlanta. Clearly that isn't a real option. Now I have a Frontier credit that may never get used.

 

Reading posts like this further confirm my decision several years ago to stop flying Frontier and stick to Southwest. Southwest may not be the best value per FF mile and so forth, but then they don’t force their customers to jump through hoops to get you to your destination, such as the Frontier two step where you get off in Terminal 1, then have to go to Terminal 3 to pick up baggage, then reverse the process on the return flight.

 

I switched to SW from Alaska Air years ago. Rates are generally good and they offer a good number of flights. Unassigned seating, but check in at the right time and you'll get the type you want. Want to change your flight? No problem, no charge. Perfect system, no, but then neither are the others.

 

Almost same exact thing happened to me, but out of Charlotte. 8 hour layover in Denver now? No thanks, not with the kids! just call up frontier hahah it’s a 2+ hour wait time and sometimes they just pick up and hang up.
I tried Twitter & Facebook no luck.
Government can feed them millions in bailout money but they can’t deliver on the services they promised and they refuse refund.
what a sham!

 

Unfortunately, Frontier has very poor refund policies in general compared to the bigger airlines like AA, United, Delta etc. Never hurts to call and try, but I would not be optimistic.

 

Southwest was recently showing some really ridiculous connections.....to replace a SFO-LAS non-stop flight (a bit over an hour trip) they offered SFO-Denver-Milwaukee-Las Vegas which I believe took over 12 hours rather than the original 1 hour+ trip...

 

That one is hard to believe, especially for SWA

 

It isn't 100% clear from your post whether the AIRLINE cancelled or YOU cancelled.

If YOU cancelled, you are out of luck. You may want to consider negotiating with them for an extension of the voucher, or some other thing that might make it (more) useful to you.

If the AIRLINE cancelled, you may have options. The DOT has been very clear that if the airline cancels, they must refund you. The big question is, did you explicitly accept the credit, or did they just give it to you as if it was the only option? If the former, you are likely out of luck. If the latter, you can contact them and say "No thanks, I don't want a voucher, I did not authorize my card to be charged for a voucher, please refund my payment". You'll likely have grounds for a chargeback too, you're probably still in range to do that if the date of service was the last week of March.

Similar to my suggestions above, if you did not explicitly accept the credit, you should be able to recover your money by way of a DOT complaint or a credit card chargeback.

 

Oh, they had some great connections from San Francisco to Las Vegas last month....I think another was SFO-DEN-AUS-LAS and again took half the day to get there while SFO is a bit over an hour non-stop to Las Vegas..The number of non-stops on Southwest from SFO-LAS is down to 4 this month where it had typically been about 10 per day in the past before Covid-19. The flights between Houston Hobby & Dallas Love on Southwest were at least 20 per day & are now down to 3..

 

I used to love the nonstop Frontier RDU-Vegas flights! Just took their RDU - 8hr overnight layover in Denver - Vegas flight on Thursday. It sucked with a capital S. I will never do that again.

I actually flew home on Alaska Airlines. It was very out-of-the-way (flew from LAS to SEA for a one-hour layover, then a five-hour flight to RDU), but it was sooo much better. And seriously, after experiencing the superior comfort of their planes vs. Frontier's, I think I might be too spoiled to fly Frontier again.

 

what a disappointment when they stopped this flight. i think i used it 3 times to go to vegas and the flights were so packed that there wasn't room to move. after cancelling this nonstop, i emailed frontier and they said they did it because they weren't making any money on the flight. such a dumb answer. if you aren't making money on 100% full flights, you are doing something wrong. i know cincinnati offers this flight and have used it once but decided it just wasn't worth it to me.

i booked a flight yesterday for the end of june on southwest....$99 each way nonstop.....ahh, the good ole days

 

Frontier has been jerking me around almost weekly. Delta, in fact, also switched me from a direct flight to a crazy one stop. Making it quite difficult to make any firm plans!

The current return flight is a 6am lift off. Tempted to spend the night at LAS. Anything at all open overnights there? To get some pop or munchies?